It always amazes me how laws sometimes evolve into a situation where unintended consequences become ironic.

You Aren't allowed to build a very light-weight car in the US to help mileage. It has to pass crash-testing with heavy reinforcements and have expensive airbags, BUT...

I can drive a 250cc motorcycle on the freeway here in Utah without a helmet at 75 MPH !! (short organ-donor waiting list)

What this guy needs to do is something that more objectionable, but completely within the condo association charter. Get the widest electric wheelchair you can find (with saber-hubs, like the "Ben-Hur" combat chariot), and zip around everywhere while honking a horn (safety device).

"I was Poland, and he was a Stuka dive bomber" -Madeline Kahn in "High Anxiety"

Actually it isn't the Federal MVSS that prevents us from getting lighter fuel efficient cars like are available in Europe. European crash standards are comparable to US ones. But it is true that emissions regulations have prevented very high efficiency diesel cars (like the old 50 mpg rabbit diesel) from being sold in the US. Supposedly this is about to change.

But the biggest difference is the engines used and how they are tuned. Europeans are happy with 60 horsepower 1.2 liter engines if it means good fuel economy. In the US, nothing is available with less than 115 horsepower. There is simply a mentality in the Detroit boardrooms that US drivers simply won't buy anything that has less than 0-60 in 8 second performance. Unfortunately this seems to be a safe assumption - and will be until we are paying European-level prices for fuel.